


An Unexpected Union

by CheyWriter321



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel Castiel (Supernatural), Boys In Love, Castiel Loves Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:07:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23645881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheyWriter321/pseuds/CheyWriter321
Summary: Another prompt. A short story of Castiel falling in love with Dean and saving him from Hell.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Kudos: 19





	An Unexpected Union

**Author's Note:**

> Another prompt from "Write the Story" by Piccadilly Inc.
> 
> A short Castiel-told story of falling in love with Dean Winchester.

Castiel had been watching the brothers for longer than anyone knew.

They had only been children when it had first become common place for him to turn his eyes on them. Every angel knew how important the Winchesters were, but it had been hard to understand how these humans could hold such cosmic importance. Castiel knew what they were meant to be, how each figured into the massive tug-of-war between good and evil. Still, he was not convinced.

Frankly, Castiel had seen potatoes with more promise than the Winchester brothers.

Dean was profoundly broken, even as a child. A specter of loss and desperation masquerading as a person after his mother died. Sam was doubtless intelligent, but also selfish and dangerously naive.

But as time went on and they grew older, Castiel had come to see them differently. He saw the guilt and shame that twisted Sam and made him run instead of fight. He saw the deep well of love that bloomed from like a wild hydrangea from Dean's fear of losing what little he had left.

He watched the bond between them grow. Castiel was the one who saw Dean singing “Hey Jude” when Sam was sleeping restlessly. He saw when Sam would wake to his brother sobbing in the night and get up to hold his hand until Dean slept. He watched them huddle together when John was drunk and angry at all that had been stolen from them. He watched Dean become Sam's shield and Sam become Dean's purpose.

Castiel couldn't look away. As the sign scribbled across destiny grew brighter, he came to see how much he cared for their terribly fragile lives. It was something close to agony, watching their dark fates close in upon them.

It wasn't until the Hounds came for Dean that Castiel understood how deeply he wished that they could be saved.

The other angels watched with him after Dean went to Hell. All his brothers and sisters gathered with him to sit sentry until it was time to run. For them, it was necessary to wait: just another step in fulfilling their father's prophecy. To Castiel it was a slowly opening wound.

He watched Dean's torture from Heaven, silently pleading with the hunter to just give in. Once he shed blood, the angels were free to act. But Dean refused. His soul continued to shine, visible even in the depths of Hades. It was like seeing a star held captive beneath the ground. It was more than Castiel could bear, watching Allistair carve rents of darkness into that brilliantly illuminated soul. It was obscene to see the violence being visited upon something so pure. Even though Castiel had always known that Dean Winchester was the Righteous Man, he hadn't understood the meaning of the term until he watched the man be ripped apart over and over and over to spare other souls.

It was a relief when Dean broke. Castiel was so relieved that the heavenly hosts could finally descend that he didn't see the dark hole that ripped wide in Dean's soul the first time he raised his knife in Hell. As Castiel burst through the gates, all he could see was the light of Dean's soul calling him forward. It was so bright, but it was fading. Fading so quickly.

Everywhere was death. Angels flared and died around him, demons withered at the touch of his hand, but all he could see was the dimming light of Dean Winchester in the distance. When he found an opening to break through, he took it. His wings burned as he blasted his way to the dungeons, desperate to get to Dean before the light died forever. There was still so far to go, so many left to fight. But he did it, breaking through demons and walls with greater intensity the closer he got.

Then at last Dean was in front of him. Stories from every alphabet of torture were carved across him, great slashes of shadowing his light. The hunter looked at him from eyes that were empty of hope. His fingers dropped the blade he held and he crashed to his knees at Castiel's feet.

“Kill me,” Dean said in a flat voice. “Do it. I don't care anymore.”

Castiel's hands rested gently on Dean's face. In that moment, the angel knew that he was lost: irrevocably tied to the beautiful and broken soul between his palms. Nothing would ever be as precious and real as the man was in that instant. Never had he touched anything so holy as The Righteous Man when he was covered by the blood he shed in Hell.

He had crushed Dean against his chest and carried him from the underworld. The hunter had been dead weight in his arms, dragging them both down with the burden of his grief and loss. When at last they were free, Castiel screamed out his victory so that the others would know. Then he carried Dean into the wilderness, high up into the mountains to a beautiful valley where humans had not tread in a hundred years.

It was there that he took his time healing Dean's soul. The hunter had spoken to him of every horrible thing he had done, laid himself bare for the angel, making sure that every single sin was spoken as if he could be shriven in the confession. It was the first time Castiel shed tears. It had been almost impossible for Castiel to let go of Dean, to take his soul back to his body. Cas knew that Dean's suffering was not yet at an end, that he was repairing him only to watch him be torn apart again.

But it was his Father's will and he had to obey.

Dean's rebirth had taken his memories of the time Castiel had spent healing him, but Cas had stayed close. He belonged to Dean in a way that he couldn't quantify, a way that all his eons of existence had never prepared him for. There didn't seem to be any words for how deeply Dean had touched him, no term that described what they meant to each other. “Boyfriend”, “soul-mate”, “best friend”, “brother”: these terms all fell short.

Cas was a part of Dean just as Dean was a part of him. Like tides and supernovas and the word of God himself: they were unchangeable and unstoppable.

Cas would never leave Dean, not really. All that he was, all that he had, was so deeply tied up in his love for the hunter that Cas didn't even know how the world looked without him in it. Whatever it took to save Dean Winchester, Cas would do.

It was the truth of his immortal existence: Save Dean Winchester.


End file.
